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Fedora 19 will be named "Schrödinger's Cat"

Fedora Project Leader Robyn Bergeron has announced the results of the voting for the Fedora 19 release name and has confirmed that the successor to Spherical Cow will be called "Schrödinger's Cat". A total of 391 ballots were cast by Fedora contributors; using the range voting method, 1,876 votes were awarded to the winning name.

Other candidates for names were Higgs Boson (1,620 votes), Tiddalik (1,012), Loch Ness Monster (960), Newtonian Dynamics (907), Martian Blueberries (892), Parabolic Potassium (722) and Cubical Calf (595). The names for Fedora releases are required to have a connection with the previous code-name. However, these release name relationships have been, at least recently, somewhat weakened, as was demonstrated by the connection between Fedora 16 "Verne" and Fedora 17 "Beefy Miracle".

In the case of Spherical Cow and Schrödinger's Cat, the connection seems to be that both have to do with things that are theoretical. The phrase spherical cow comes from a joke about theoretical physicists, while Schrödinger's cat is the name of a theoretical thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger.

The project's next major release, Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow", is still currently in development and has experienced a number of delays, pushing the final release date into next year. The current stable release of Fedora is version 17 from the end of May.